Fishing spears presently known in the art are of two types. First, a simple shaft is provided with a smoothly contoured, pointed blade on its end which will easily penetrate a fish. This simple spear construction has the advantage of enabling relatively easy spearing of the fish since the sharp pointed blade can easily penetrate the flesh of the fish and further, it is very simple to retract or pull the spear free from the fish when bagging the fish; that is, when the diver deposits the speared fish in a convenient carrying bag.
The very feature of easy removal of this type of spear in bagging the fish, however, represents a disadvantage since the fish can often work free of the end of the spear prior to bagging the fish. As a result, many speared fish are lost.
The second type of spear incorporates barbs in the penetrating or blade portion of the spear. The provision of barbs solves the problem of a fish working loose after once speared. On the other hand, a barbed type of spear with the barbs exposed does not penetrate the flesh of a fish as readily as a smooth blade. Moreover, there is considerable time involved in attempting to retract the spear from the speared fish when bagging the fish. Even if a caging arrangement is provided for the barbs, removal of these types of spears still requires that the diver holds the fish exterior of the bag with one hand while retracting the spear with the other. This procedure can be awkward and in many instances, mortally wounded fish will simply escape prior to being actually placed in the bag and die elsewhere.